Remote Software Tools

So the head of the School that I do some part time IT Support for has pulled the plug on the LEA's CLEO link without any consultation from me and has got a local IT firm to stick an ADSL Line in. I'm still trying to find out some more details about the link but it's proving difficult (like pulling teeth)!

Anyway now the CLEO link has gone I have lost the ability to connect remotely from home to do all of the various bits and pieces the head asks me to do as and when the crop up so I am looking at an alternative solution. I was thinking of something simple like Teamviewer which does work quite well but is only free for private use and will be over £400 for a licence which the head is not going to pay for.

Just wondering what everyone else use for remote support over the internet? is there any good 100% free software out there that anyone uses or do you all have your own VPN's setup for remote support?

Thanks in advance.
gselliott

What are the local IT firm doing about filtering? surely this is a big issue?

If they havn't put anything in look at something like smoothwall with the firewall as there is a vpn solution with that.

The other thing you could do is setup a Adito or HAP server and then connect via RDP using that?

If you have Windows servers you have VPN server support. Just set that up and poke a hole through the firewall for it you will end up with a much more versitile link than teamviewer.

Thanks for the replies, I was thinking VPN was the best way to go just wondered if there were anything else being used.

glennda - the IT firm that has put in the link have got filtering in place as they also do IT support for many other schools in the county (so I'm told anyway!!)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gselliott

Thanks for the replies, I was thinking VPN was the best way to go just wondered if there were anything else being used.

glennda - the IT firm that has put in the link have got filtering in place as they also do IT support for many other schools in the county (so I'm told anyway!!)

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Is this the firm that's also supporting rural broadband?

Logmein works well enough for basic tasks, though I wouldn't want to use it for anything long or complicated...